A Las Vegas woman was slain by her son Thursday in a murder-suicide that initially prompted a bomb scare in a Southern California neighborhood, according to authorities.
Esperanza Guadalupe Cullen, 58, was apparently visiting her son in Simi Valley, Calif., about 300 driving miles southwest of Las Vegas, when some sort of argument broke out.
After Michael John Cullen, 33, shot his mother -- and then the family dog -- he went into his bedroom, and shut the door with a note attached to it: "Bomb inside don't open explosion," according to the Simi Valley Police Department.
He then turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger, police said.
The man lived with an aunt and uncle, one of whom found the victim lying in a pool of blood in the kitchen, police said.
Police quickly evacuated the house when they found the bomb threat, police said. A bomb squad responded and a robot found no explosives. Instead, in a later search personnel found a man's body and the remains of a dog.